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Their knee is tucked up under the feathers of their belly. The bent crook of the leg that we can observe looks like a knee, but it is actually the birds’ ankle. Like humans, the birds have two main leg joints: the ankle and the knee. Andrews of the Washington Post, flamingos’ unique skeletal structure helps them stay still while resting on one foot. Why might this be the case? According to Travis M. Intriguingly, the cadavers did not hold a stable pose when they were propped up on two legs, suggesting that standing on two feet requires more effort for flamingos than perching on one leg.
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“If a dead flamingo could do it, then it is probably available for live birds to do.” “That was the ‘Aha!’ moment when we knew we were on to something special,” Chang told Choi. As Charles Choi writes for Discover Magazine, the dead bird’s ability to maintain a rigid leg prompted Chang and Ting to conclude that flamingos support themselves on one leg using a passive mechanism that does not require active muscle force. He held the cadaver by its shin and hoisted it upright-and the leg joints instantly locked into a straight-legged pose. But when Chang decided to pick up the flamingo cadaver, the experiment took a dramatic turn. They obtained two frozen flamingo cadavers from the Birmingham Zoo and dissected them, hoping to uncover features that would secure the leg joints in place. “Its body swayed less, and its center of gravity moved by mere millimeters,” Yong writes.Ĭhang and Ting then set out to conduct detailed examinations of the birds’ legs.
![flamingo legs flamingo legs](https://live.staticflickr.com/8469/8099052930_f02ffd872c_b.jpg)
One flamingo fell asleep on the plate, allowing Chang and Ting to observe the little bird's surprising sturdiness as it slumbered. They headed to Zoo Atlanta armed with a force plate, which measures the force that a body generates on the ground, and coaxed it under some fluffy juvenile flamingos. Now, a new study explores how the birds maintain their balancing act, providing new insights into the flamingo’s one-legged posture.Īs Ed Yong reports for the Atlantic, biologists Young-Hui Chang of Georgia Tech and Lena Ting of Emory University wanted to find out how much muscle energy is expended when flamingos perch on one leg. Scientists have proffered a number of theories about why the birds often stand on a single, slender leg while resting-some say it helps them conserve heat in cold waters, others maintain the stance reduces muscle fatigue. You can obtain your own indoor culture simply by following the good practices of indoor culture through the acquisition of quality and reliable equipment for hydroponics, as well as nutritious supplements (Canna, Plagron, Biobizz, etc.) for your plants allowing their good development.Ĭulture Indoor is your growshop for information, comparison and purchase of hydroponic and organic gardening equipment.Flamingos’ signature pose is an enduring natural mystery. Likewise, boost your plants with Lumatek, Gavita 400 W or 600 W electronic ballasts, allowing you to obtain lively, robust and quality plants in hydroponics in a minimum of time, find more than 8000 references in our online catalog. Our range of indoor products includes all the elements necessary for a good indoor culture: cultivate indoors thanks to our culture chambers, carbon filters, hydroponic systems, air extractors, fans, potting soils, fertilizers and fertilizers, additives such as Platinium, Canna, Biobizz, General Hydroponics. Culture Indoor specialist in online sales and in physical stores of hydroponic equipment.